The King's Daughter (50 page)

Frances smiled. “Your cup is empty, Amy.” She poured another goblet full. Amy swallowed half of it. “Nice, this wine of yours,” she said. Her words were becoming slurred. “Sort of a … flowery taste. Did you put one of your funny tinctures in it?”

“Yes. For relaxing. Do you like it?”

Amy nodded. “Tastes like pears,” she started to say, but the words that slid out didn’t sound much like that. She looked at Frances sheepishly. She had not realized she had drunk quite so much. She opened her mouth to make a jest about it, but her tongue felt lodged in her throat. And when she tried to turn her head away from Frances’s relentless scrutiny, she found she could not move at all. Even her jaw would not move—her mouth remained open in a humiliating gape. Her brain pulsed with sudden fright. All of her muscles were frozen. The room was becoming dark around the edges. Only Frances’s face before her was clear and stark, the firelight jumping over its bony planes.

Amy’s body slumped onto the table, her cheek in the pool of spilled wine. Her eyes stared. Her heart pounded in fear. What was happening to her?

She heard the rustle of France’s brocade skirt. She felt the shiver of a touch on her neck, like a bird’s claw. “Come with me, Amy.”

She grappled a fistful of Amy’s hair and shoved her other hand under Amy’s armpit. “I heard about you accosting Edward on his doorstep the other day. Everyone on the street saw you. Drunk, they said you were. Oh, I know Edward spurned your repulsive advances. But this morning I witnessed for myself another of your wanton ploys with him. I really cannot tolerate this any longer.”

Amy was yanked off her seat by her arm and by her hair. Her paralyzed body was dragged across the room toward the hearth. Frances dropped her on her stomach. Amy’s head thudded onto the hearth, a foot away from the fire. Her eyes were open and she stared at the flames in terror. But she could not move.

Frances kneeled beside her. “I have only this to say, Amy. Keep away from Edward. I know you are a clever girl so I feel sure I need only say it once. However, some aid in remembering it may be helpful to you.” She fanned out Amy’s hair on the hearth so that it lay only an inch from the fire. She waited. Amy stared ahead in horror. She could feel nothing but her heart thudding. And then she smelled it—her hair burning. She heard Frances leave her side. She saw smoke. Unable to cough, her heart about to explode, she began to drool.

France said over her, “I trust this warning will douse your amorous instincts.” Wine sloshed over Amy’s head. She heard the hiss of the flames, dying. She smelled the sickly sweet odor of wine mixed with wet, burned hair. Wine dripped down her cheek to the hearth. She was aware only of overwhelming relief. And then she fainted.

29
Candlema

A
n elbow jabbed Isabel’s rib. She tried to ignore the crush of the crowd packed into the entrance of London’s Guildhall as she stood on tiptoe, craning her neck to catch a glimpse of Queen Mary on her dais in the Great Hall. The huge hall itself, almost as large as Westminster Hall, was crammed with citizens, all anxiously chattering. But the moment the Queen began to speak there was instant silence. Isabel held her breath. Was the Queen going to capitulate to Wyatt’s demands? Accept her people’s wishes?

“Loving subjects,” the Queen began formally, “I am come unto you in mine own person to tell you that which already you do know—that is, how traitorously and seditiously a number of rebels have assembled against both us and you. Their presence, as they said at first, was only to resist a marriage determined between us and the Prince of Spain. Butyou shall see that the marriage will be found to be the least of their quarrel. They have now betrayed the inward treason of their hearts, and soon we will see them demanding the possession of our person, and the keeping of our Tower, and the placing and displacing of our councilors.”

The Queen paused as if expecting some hearty response of solidarity from the crowd. But the citizens remained quiet. And Isabel knew this would be no capitulation. The Queen looked about as if unsure of how to proceed. The silence seemed to puzzle her; her entry here had been all glorious fanfare.

Isabel had heard it from Sydenham’s house on nearby Lombard Street. All morning she had been sunk in sleep, seeking its oblivion like a drug after the painful parting from Martin in Rochester, but the commotion outside had awoken her. Hurrying out Sydenham’s front door she had seen the Queen’s entourage pass by at the end of the street as it moved north from Cheapside. The Queen had ridden from Westminster with her lords and ladies, knights and gentlemen, heralds and bishops and continuously blaring trumpeters. What could it mean? Isabel had wondered. Driven by curiosity, she had fallen in with the crowd and followed the royal entourage to Guildhall.

Now, the Queen stood on the hustings—the platform at the end of the hall where the Lord Mayor’s court was held—and looked out at the crowd from under a golden cloth of state. She was almost surrounded by pale-faced aldermen. Thomas White, the Lord Mayor, stood on her right, and Lord William Howard, commander of the city’s defenses, stood on her left. Sir Edward Sydenham and John Grenville were crowded up beside Lord Howard, and a dozen prominent citizens were crammed in around the Lord Mayor. Ambassador de Noailles stood complacently studying his feet. Among the crowd Isabel caught sight of Master Legge of the Crane Inn anxiously whispering to a friend. It seemed that half of London was here. Bakers, goldsmiths, cordwainers, and housewives. Glovers, constables, haberdashers, and leathersellers. Some had been drawn by animosity, some by respect, most by curiosity. All were waiting for Queen Mary’s words. And none more intently than Isabel.

“Loving subjects,” the Queen began afresh, “at my coronation I was wedded to the realm and to the laws of the realm. I wear here on my finger the spousal ring, and it never was, nor ever hereafter shall be, left off.” She held up her right hand and displayed the ring. “At that coronation, you promised your allegiance and obedience unto me, and by your oath you may not suffer any rebel to usurp the governance of our person, or to occupy our estate. This traitor Wyatt is just such a rebel, who most certainly intends to subdue the laws to his will, and to make general havoc and spoil of your goods.”

A drone of apprehension eddied through the hall. Isabel saw Legge scowling and nodding his head. He was not alone. Everywhere, men of property were nodding in nervous agreement at the Queen’s warning of pillage.

Queen Mary seemed buoyed by the response. Her voice rang out, “And this I further tell you, as your Queen. I cannot say how a mother loves her children, for I was never mother of any. But certainly a prince and governor may as naturally and as earnestly love subjects as the mother does her child. Then assure yourselves that I, being your sovereign lady and Queen, do as earnestly and as tenderly love and favor you. And I, thus loving you, cannot but think that you as heartily and faithfully love me.”

This brought a low murmur of praise from the listeners. Many began to smile.

“And concerning my intended marriage,” the Queen went on fervently, “against which the rebels pretend their quarrel, understand that I entered not into that treaty without advice of all our Privy Council, who considered the great advantages that might ensue from it, both for the wealth of our realm and also of our loving subjects. Touching myself, I assure you I am not so desirous of wedding that for my own pleasure I will choose where I lust. I thank God, to whom bethe praise thereof, that I have hitherto lived a virgin, and I doubt not but with God’s grace I could live so still. But if it might please God that I might leave some fruit of my body behind me to be your governor, I trust you would not only rejoice thereat, but also I know it would be to your great comfort.”

These personal admissions—so intimate, so generous—brought more warm smiles from the crowd. The Queen seemed to take courage from them. “And in the word of a Queen,” she went on, head high, “I promise you that if it shall not reasonably appear to the nobility and commons of Parliament that this marriage shall be for the benefit and advantage of all the whole country, then I will abstain, not only from this marriage, but also from any other whereof any peril may ensue to this most noble realm of England.”

“God bless Your Majesty!” a hoarse voice cried.

The Queen smiled. “Wherefore now, as good and faithful subjects pluck up your hearts! And like true men stand fast with your lawful prince against these rebels, both our enemies and yours. If you do, I am minded to live and die with you, and strain every nerve in your cause, for this time your fortunes, goods, honor, safety, wives and children are in the balance. Fear not the rebels!” she resolutely concluded. “I assure you I fear them nothing at all!”

There was silence. Then a cheer. Then a chorus of cheers. Caps flew in the air. An old man began to weep.

Beaming, the Lord Mayor led the Queen from the dais, beckoning her out of the hall toward the private Council Chamber. Aldermen surged after them. Citizens in the hall, buzzing with excitement, began to push back out toward the street, eager to spread the report of the rousing speech. The crowd flowed in several directions at once, and Isabel was knocked and shoved, then caught up in one of the moving streams and borne outside to the courtyard. Trying to withstand the current she pushed her way to the edge of the crowd. She was tugging her disheveled clothes back into order when she looked up and froze. A man’s body hung from a gibbet right before her, his eyes staring in death.

“He was caught approaching the Duke of Suffolk’s house,” a voice behind her said. “Bringing a message from Wyatt.”

She twisted around. It was Sir Edward Sydenham. “A message?” she asked shakily.

“But the writing was in code. The man died before divulging its meaning.”

She looked back at the dead man, executed right here at Guildhall as a warning. His forehead was one livid bruise with a band of small puncture wounds clotted with dried blood. His thumbs were black. He’d been tortured. Isabel felt suddenly weak … her vision darkened … she felt dizzy.

Sydenham’s arm slid around her waist. “Come,” he said gently, supporting her, “let me take you home.”

Carlos halted on the frozen stream that snaked toward the village of Dartford. The bank rose to the height of his shoulders, and beyond it he could make out a soldier trudging across the path from the village. Carlos ducked. The bank hid him from the soldier’s view, and he was satisfied that his horse, left hobbled behind a church a quarter mile back, was well out of sight, too. The stream had seemed the ideal route to penetrate the enemy’s camp, but now he could hear the soldier coming toward him, and out here on the barren surface of the ice he was exposed. Wanting to look like a villager, he’d brought no weapon except the dagger under his sheepskin coat. His right hand itched for a sword.

He looked over his shoulder. A willow tree grew aslant the stream, its branches draping down the bank. On his knees he slid across the ice to the tree, grappled the trailing branches, and pulled himself behind their curtain. He noticed that the ice here was bluer, thinner. But noticed it too late. The soldier’s boots were already rustling the dry cattailson the bank, right beside the willow. On his knees, Carlos did not move.

Through the willow curtain he saw the soldier’s pike tip smash a hole in the ice. It cracked and crazed right up to Carlos’s knees. He lowered his upper body onto his forearms to spread his weight, but ice water seeped from the hole and spread under the willow branches, soaking his gloves and his sleeves up to the elbows and his breeches below the knees. His hands and shins were freezing, but he dared not move on the fragile ice.

He heard another slosh of water and glimpsed, through the willow curtain, a bucket on a rope skimming the water in the hole. The soldier heaved the bucket out. His feet rustled the cattails again as he turned to go. His footfalls became fainter and finally died away. Still on elbows and knees, Carlos carefully moved out from the branches and along to where the ice was thick.

He stood and peered over the lip of the bank. The soldier was turning the corner at the first huddle of cottages. Carlos looked both ways along the village’s perimeter to locate Wyatt’s sentries. It was barely dusk, but small watch fires already blazed in three sentry positions. He’d picked this time, the supper hour, when the villagers would be heading home to eat and Wyatt’s company, tired and hungry after their day’s march, would be concentrating on their food as well. Besides, he needed enough light to see what he’d come to see.

As he walked further along the frozen stream he peeled off his freezing gloves and stuffed them away. The soggy extremities of his clothes stayed plastered to his skin. There was nothing he could do about that. At the village edge he came to a fulling mill, deserted. The ice had been chopped away to give access to the water. There was no way he could continue walking along the stream. He checked over both banks. A sentry was posted on either side, though neither was close to the stream. The one to the right, a long bowshot away, stood over a small fire at the corner of a farmer’s field. He faced away from the stream, warming his backside by the fire. The sentry to the left, even further off, sat huddled up in the crook of an apple tree, whittling a stick. Carlos climbed up the bank to the mill. Outside its doors he found several buckets and a water carrier’s yoke. He set the yolk over his shoulders, slung a bucket on either end, lowered his head in a menial posture, and started for the village. The sentry by the fire glanced at him idly, then turned to warm his hands. The one whittling in the tree didn’t even look up.

None of the town’s inhabitants bothered him as he passed, though a dog tethered outside a cooper’s shed barked furiously at him. A farmer and his son were pitching hay from a cart into an open barn, going about their work as though unconcerned that an army of rebels had camped in their town. Carlos turned onto the muddy main street, where an old woman mumbling her own private pains shuffled past. The low din of many men’s voices reached him, probably from the market square at the village center, he guessed. The voices and the incessant, dull clatter told him that the company was converging there to eat. Soldiers passed him in twos and threes, hurrying toward the aroma of stewing capon and onions wafting from the cauldrons set up in the square, but no one stopped him.